Ms. Foundation Grantees Organize National Week of Action for Reproductive Justice

Want something to cheer about? How about this: it's Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice!

Organized by an amazing group of Ms Foundation grantees -- the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights -- this first annual Week of Action is an effort to raise awareness about how the fight for reproductive justice impacts Latinas, and to engage the community in actions and events that help protect the reproductive rights of women everywhere.

In addition to hosting a blog carnival about Latinas and contraception (which you are invited to participate in), the week's organizers have also planned live events in cities from New York to Texas to Minnesota to California.

And of course, you can also participate in the fight to ensure that all women have affordable access to birth control and other reproductive services by taking action online. Encourage your Congressional representatives to "ask the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support comprehensive family planning services that include contraception as a key women’s health service under the Women’s Health Amendment."

The Week of Action runs until August 15th; stand up for reproductive justice today!

Help support organizations and programs fighting for our reproductive rights! Donate now and a special matching grant will double your support -- dollar-for-dollar -- for reproductive justice organizations led by women of color.

Economy Worsens for Single Mothers, Women of Color

New numbers on the economy are proving that when times get hard, women are hit hardest.

The Obama Administration is busy touting that overall unemployment held steady in July, at 9.5% (or 14.6 million Americans). [The New York Times's Bob Herbert reports that even these numbers vastly understate the proportions of the crisis.]  But that number masks some troubling facts about who's continuing to lose jobs, even as others gain them. The ones losing out, in this case, happen to be women -- particularly single mothers and women of color.

On their Womenstake blog, Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center reports:

Unemployment for women who head families shot up to 13.4 percent in July from 12.1 percent in June. This marks the highest unemployment rate for this particularly vulnerable group since the recession began in December 2007 and the highest rate in over 25 years.
Unemployment among African-American women jumped from 11.8 percent in June to 12.9 percent in July. The situation was similar for Hispanic women, whose unemployment rate increased by 1.1 percentage points to 12.1 percent in July, marking this group's highest unemployment rate since 1986.

Notably, 62 percent of the jobs lost in July were lost by women. (There's that pesky "mancession" for you again.)

Though government officials are likely to avoid discussing these facts, the people withing these communities have long known how precariously placed they are. As our Community Voices on the Economy Poll found in June, two-thirds of Latinas say that their personal situation has been affected by the country’s economic situation, and more than half report that they or someone in their household has lost a job in the past year. Meanwhile, 55% of African-American women report that they've been worried about the economy for five years or more.

If only the people actually running the economy had been worried for that long.

SWAN Sets Record Straight on Costs of Military Sexual Assault

Did you know that:

• 3,230 military sexual assaults were reported in 2009, an increase of 11% from fiscal year 2008?
• 79% of women serving in the military since Vietnam report experiencing sexual harassment?
• 62.9% of female combat veterans and 74.5% of female noncombat veterans seeking treatment for PTSD report experiencing a sexual assault while in service?

Military Sexual Trauma (or MST) has become an epidemic in our armed services. So much so, in fact, that the Veterans Administration is now spending more than $820 million annually to treat health-related sexual assault issues among veterans -- the majority of them women.

While the Department of Defense remains largely silent about the pervasiveness of sexual assault in the military -- and about their inability to punish servicemembers committing these crimes (only 8% of perpetrators are prosecuted) -- grassroots groups are now putting pressure on the Pentagon and Congress to take a more hands on role in ending MST.

To help draw attention to the insidiousness of sexual crimes in the military, Ms. Foundation grantee SWAN (Service Women's Action Network) has just released a useful fact sheet [pdf] on MST. In addition to data on the number of crimes committed, and the barriers victims face if and when they seek justice, SWAN also crunches the numbers to show just how much this epidemic is costing the American people each year. "Perhaps when the Pentagon and Congress realize that this issue amounts to millions of dollars of taxpayer money... they might decide to finally do something to curb the epidemic sexual assault and harassment in the military," says Anu Bhagwati, Executive Director of SWAN.

With studies now showing that sexual harassment causes the same rates of PTSD in women veterans as combat does in men, the time has clearly come to put an end to what certainly qualifies as a national disgrace. Kudos to SWAN for doing the hard work and getting the facts straight. Our women and men in uniform are lucky to have advocates like you, fighting on their behalf.

Cheers for Justice Kagan, Prop 8 Ruling

Two amazing things happened last week that we just have to pause to celebrate:

• Elena Kagan was sworn in as the fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Joining Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, she now becomes the third woman on the current court -- which has never before happened in the history of this nation. The Ms. Foundation congratulates Justice Kagan on her extraordinary achievement, and applauds President Obama for bringing us part way to some long-awaited gender balance on the United States Supreme Court.
  
  
• Proposition 8 was overturned in California! Along with millions of Americans, we were overjoyed to learn that the ban on same-sex marriage in California had been struck down -- in no uncertain terms. Finding that Proposition 8 definitively discriminated against gay and lesbian couples, the ruling by Judge Vaughn R. Walker has been heralded by legal scholars and commentators as a remarkably well-researched and nuanced decision that may leave little room for dissent upon appeal to the higher courts. And there will indeed be appeals; this one is likely headed all the way to the Supreme Court.
  
  It’s still uncertain what our highest court will do if and when the case lands before them -- but for now, joy is the order of the day. Big congrats to all of our GLBTQ sisters and brothers!

Join the Fight for Comprehensive Sexuality Education

Former Ms. Foundation grantee Advocates for Youth is pushing to bring comprehensive sex ed to every state in the nation -- and they need your help!

Thanks to the hard work of thousands of advocates around the country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has officially launched the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), allowing states to apply for $55 million in first-of-its-kind federal funding for comprehensive sex education. Now the key is to get state governors to actually apply to bring that funding to their states.

Urge your Governor to apply for PREP funding to bring comprehensive sex ed to your community!

States have until August 30th to make their intention to apply known -- so time is short. Make sure the leadership in your state capital knows that you support the teaching of medically accurate sexuality eduction, not abstinence-only programs that have been proven ineffective but continue to garner support at the highest levels of governance, in terms of both domestic and international policy.

Take action on behalf comprehensive sex-ed today!

In US, Child Care Costs Outpace College Tuition

According to a report [pdf] just released by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, in 39 states across America, a year of child care now costs more than the annual tuition at a public university. And for an increasing number of families, expenditures on child care now top the amount of money spent monthly on food.

As you'll see in the following video, which ran on Good Morning America earlier this week, the staggering cost of child care is putting more and more families in a terrible bind as the economy continues to flag: without child care, parents can't work or look for work -- but low wage jobs and lack of employment make it impossible for them to afford the child care they need.



Ms. Foundation grantee All Our Kin stands at the forefront of the fight to make child care safe and affordable. They are campaigning hard to ensure that Care4Kids, Connecticut's child care subsidy program, remains funded and functioning -- so that families like the ones profiled in this video are spared some of the impossible choices put before them. The group was recently able to secure ARRA funding from the Department of Social Services that will help them train up to 400 family child care providers across the state of Connecticut, providing education, employment and quality, collaborative child care to those who need it most.

Learn more about how the Ms. Foundation partners with grassroots groups to promote just economic policies that benefit women, families and communities.

Grantee 'Parent Voices' Organizes to Save Child Care in CA

One of the great things about working at the Ms. Foundation is that you get the chance to be utterly inspired by the work our grantees are doing, often on a daily basis. Today, that inspiration emanates from California, where our grantee Parent Voices is using remarkably creative methods to counter proposed budget cuts that would seriously threaten child care programs throughout the state.

Parent Voices is a parent-led grassroots organization fighting to make quality child care affordable and accessible to all families. Because they are based in California, they have a special interest in fighting Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal to eliminate nearly all state funding for child care. From subsidies to infrastructure -- you name it, and the Governator is looking to do away with it.

Along with using traditional measures to challenge these proposed cuts (partnering with legislative leaders; building coalitions), the leaders at PV also came up with an ingenious tactic for raising awareness of the issue and encouraging more folks to speak out against the cuts.

Timed to coincide with the opening of the California State Fair in mid-July, PV created an event called the "California State UN-Fair," which drew an audience of more than 250 parents, children and child care providers from around the state. The event's goal was to spread the word that cuts to child care are only likely to result in further job losses, and to urge the state legislature to protect programs that keep parents and child care providers working. The carnival-themed event featured games like:

• "The Wheel of Misfortune" -- where, however you spin the wheel, a proposed child care cut or welfare cut results in families suffering and the loss of a job
  
• "Funding Tug O' War" -- to show how proposed cuts to health and human services impact both children and their parents
  
• "The Child Care Gamble" -- where a toy landing on either rent, utilities, gas, and car insurance determined which bill would not be paid if cuts to child care went through

The event leaders also created a soup line, where they gave out free Cup-o-Noodles to attendees. And participants were given the opportunity to take direct action on the issue of the day by calling US Representative Barbara Lee and voicing their concerns about the need for federal child care funding as states continue to falter.

Not only did the event draw a crowd in the hundreds, but more than 25 media outlets picked up the story and ran with it. Legislators and other local organizations had nothing but great feedback to share -- and most importantly, just one day later, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, Labor and HHS (which Barbara Lee sits on), approved a $700 million increase to the Child Care and Development Block Grant. Two weeks later, the Senate Appropriations Committee increased federal child care funding by $1 billion.

What a win for PV! The problems with child care in California aren't over by a long-shot, but their creative, compelling organizing is helping to build a safer world for millions of children across their state and beyond.

See what we mean by inspiring?